Page 1417 - war-and-peace

voluntary.
The ancients have left us model heroic poems in which
the heroes furnish the whole interest of the story, and we
are still unable to accustom ourselves to the fact that for our
epoch histories of that kind are meaningless.
On the other question, how the battle of Borodino and
the preceding battle of Shevardino were fought, there also
exists a definite and well-known, but quite false, concep-
tion. All the historians describe the affair as follows:
The Russian army, they say, in its retreat from Smolensk
sought out for itself the best position for a general engage-
ment and found such a position at Borodino.
The Russians, they say, fortified this position in advance
on the left of the highroad (from Moscow to Smolensk) and
almost at a right angle to it, from Borodino to Utitsa, at the
very place where the battle was fought.
In front of this position, they say, a fortified outpost was
set up on the Shevardino mound to observe the enemy. On
the twenty-fourth, we are told, Napoleon attacked this ad-
vanced post and took it, and, on the twenty-sixth, attacked
the whole Russian army, which was in position on the field
of Borodino.
So the histories say, and it is all quite wrong, as anyone
who cares to look into the matter can easily convince him-
self.
The Russians did not seek out the best position but, on
the contrary, during the retreat passed many positions bet-
ter than Borodino. They did not stop at any one of these
positions because Kutuzov did not wish to occupy a position

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